sharevsshortWhich spelling fits?

Which to use

“share” and “short” are a confusable French pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.

#34,310
“share” frequency rank
#7,499
“short” frequency rank
41809
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature share short
Definition Participation. Culotte courte, ne couvrant que le haut des cuisses.

Where the eye mixes share and short

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence.

5 ch
share
5 ch
short

Visual trap between share and short

A purely visual mix-up. share (\ʃɛə(ɹ)\) and short (\ʃɔʁt\) are said differently, so reading them aloud is the quickest way to catch the wrong one. On the page they stay close: they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 41809, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

share is recorded at frequency rank #34,310, classified as anoun, pronounced \ʃɛə(ɹ)\. short is at rank #7,499, tagged as anoun, pronounced \ʃɔʁt\.

Glosses for this pair are partially populated in our dataset, but the full side-by-side definitions above should still guide you to the right choice.

With a confusion score of 41809, this pair ranks #230,348 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of share vs short

Shared letters: hrs. Private to "share": ae. Private to "short": ot.

"share" · 5 letters · shape CCVCV  ·  "short" · 5 letters · shape CCVCC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • sharehsare · sahre · shaer · sharre · shhare · shrae · sshare
  • shorthsort · shhort · shorrt · shortt · shotr · shrot · sohrt · sshort

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "share" for "short" ever safe?
No. They are said differently (\ʃɛə(ɹ)\ versus \ʃɔʁt\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Frequency check: "share" vs "short" - which ranks higher?
"short" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #7,499 in our French list, against #34,310 for "share". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

After this comparison

Visual near-miss handled. Browse the word pages or a neighbour when the next look-alike shows up.

  • Full dictionary entry for "share" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "short" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #230,348 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "share" and "short" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "share vs stase". Nearby pair
  • Recorded mistypes exist for at least one side of this pair, useful when a spell-checker or OCR lands on the wrong form. See mistypes

Confusion rank #230,348 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.

Source: Wiktionary (via kaikki.org) Structured Wiktionary extract

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list